history of democracy

(Newser) - As Barack Obama’s inauguration brings one thing once deemed impossible—a black US president—it will be accompanied by the renewal of another seemingly intractable issue, David Remnick writes in the New Yorker: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Obama claims to understand “the obligation to repair the world” set out...

(Newser) - Honest Abe may be gone, but an industry of books, debates, and a Spielberg biopic are all alive and well. With Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial coming next year, all three White House hopefuls have invoked his name, and the US Mint is issuing pennies to honor states where he lived. "...

(Newser) - The Magna Carta returned to the National Archives yesterday after facing an uncertain fate on the auction block last year, the Washington Post reports. The 13th-century English document, a precursor to the US Bill of Rights 500 years later, is now on permanent loan from a US businessman who bought...